Symposioum of Plato
The non-dual Reality
To this I will proceed; please to give me your
very best attention:
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| Diotima |
‘He who has been instructed thus far in the
things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and
succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of
wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former
toils)—a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and
decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and
foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at
another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to
some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other
part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in
any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in
any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which
without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing
and perishing beauties of all other things.
He who from these ascending under the
influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the
end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of
love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of
that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and
from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from
fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion
of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
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| Socrates |
This, my dear Socrates,’ said the stranger of
Mantineia, ‘is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation
of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be
after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose
presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live
seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible—you
only want to look at them and to be with them.
But what if man had eyes to see the true
beauty—the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged
with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither
looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine?
Remember how in that communion only, beholding
beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images
of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality),
and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and
be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?’
Original text in ancient Greek language
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| Diotima |
ὅταν δή τις ἀπὸ τῶνδε διὰ τὸ ὀρθῶς παιδεραστεῖν ἐπανιὼν ἐκεῖνο τὸ καλὸν ἄρχηται καθορᾶν, σχεδὸνἄν τι ἅπτοιτο τοῦ τέλους. τοῦτο γὰρ δή ἐστι τὸ ὀρθῶς ἐπὶ τὰ ἐρωτικὰ ἰέναι ἢ ὑπ᾽ ἄλλου ἄγεσθαι, ἀρχόμενον ἀπὸ τῶνδε τῶν καλῶν ἐκείνου ἕνεκα τοῦ καλοῦ ἀεὶ ἐπανιέναι,ὥσπερ ἐπαναβασμοῖς χρώμενον, ἀπὸ ἑνὸς ἐπὶ δύο καὶ ἀπὸ δυοῖν ἐπὶ πάντα τὰ καλὰ σώματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν καλῶν σωμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ μαθήματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων ἐπ᾽ἐκεῖνο τὸ μάθημα τελευτῆσαι, ὅ ἐστιν οὐκ ἄλλου ἢ αὐτοῦ ἐκείνου τοῦ καλοῦ μάθημα, καὶ γνῷ αὐτὸ τελευτῶν ὃ ἔστι καλόν.
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| Socrates |
ἢ οὐκ ἐνθυμῇ, ἔφη, ὅτι ἐνταῦθα αὐτῷ μοναχοῦ γενήσεται, ὁρῶντι ᾧ ὁρατὸν τὸ καλόν, τίκτειν οὐκ εἴδωλα ἀρετῆς, ἅτε οὐκ εἰδώλου ἐφαπτομένῳ, ἀλλὰ ἀληθῆ, ἅτε τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἐφαπτομένῳ· τεκόντι δὲ ἀρετὴν ἀληθῆ καὶ θρεψαμένῳ ὑπάρχει θεοφιλεῖ γενέσθαι, καὶ εἴπέρ τῳ ἄλλῳ ἀνθρώπων ἀθανάτῳ καὶ ἐκείνῳ;
